Ancient Furies

by Anastasia V. Saporito

  I was upset at the lies, but then Father had coached me very carefully to state that I had been born in 1926 and that I was eighteen years old in order to get cigarettes. So, by being asked to lie myself, the untrue statements by and about Max and his family didn’t bother me too greatly.

  A few days later Father fell from a ladder while working on repairs to the sun porch. It was a bad fall, and he broke his right arm. For the next couple of weeks he continued working on the house, but he was unable to do anything requiring two hands or heavy lifting. I helped him, of course, but his progress was slowed. I had to learn how to shave him with an old-fashioned straight razor. I was a bit nervous using it the first time, but quickly learned, and did so quite well.

  While cleaning his room one day, I found his service revolver and the three bullets he kept with it. I remembered when he had shown it to me in Belgrade, and what he had said about refusing to allow Mother or me to fall into the hands of the Soviet army, and shuddered. How he managed to keep a revolver all through the occupation, the flight from Belgrade, and especially here in the Klosterwerk camp is something I will never understand. Surely it would have meant his death if the Germans had ever found it. I had no way of understanding how he and Mother felt about the Soviet “Hooligans,” but I was certain that I would choose life in Russia over death.

  We visited Mother’s grave daily and planted spring flowers. Father spent a lot of time relaxing while his arm healed. One evening the owner of the house was out, and Father and I were alone. Father sat in an armchair, enjoying the comfort of the soft upholstery and puffing on a cigarette.

  “You know, Asinka,” he began, with a faraway look in his eyes, “I wish there was a way for you to go to America. When you were a little girl, Mother went to Boston, in America, to visit some friends. You must remember Dyadya Shura, Alexander Borovsky, the concert pianist who visited us on his European concert tour. Mother liked America very much. She said that the people were very friendly. Of course, you’ve seen that for yourself—the American officers and soldiers we have met are all friendly and very courteous. At any rate, I think perhaps it would be a good idea, something to think about.”

  “Why America, Papa?”

  “Well, Europe is in such turmoil. It always has been. We can’t stay in Germany. We can’t go back to Belgrade. It’s in the hands of the “Hooligans,” and besides, we have lost everything back there. And France . . . well, I don’t know. I do have very good friends in Paris. In fact, my second in command during the Russian revolution is in Paris. He entered the priesthood. You could perhaps go there to Father Gregórii. But France is still Europe, and I’m not so sure.”

  “Why can’t we stay in Germany?”

  “Well, I’m sure the Germans aren’t too happy to see us around. You know, it’s like a bad tooth. If you extract a bad tooth, you don’t keep it around to remind you of the pain it caused. In a sense we would be like a bad tooth. Despite the overtures they are making toward us now, when things get back to normal they’ll reject us as foreigners, discard us like a bad tooth.”

  “You’re saying that I should go to America or Paris, Papa, but what about you?”

  “I’m tired, Asinka. I ran in 1920, first to Shanghai, then to Constantinople, and finally to Belgrade, and look at me again . . . on the run to Vienna, Halle, and Blankenburg. Where to next?”

  “Is it because Mother is buried here?”

  “Yes. Someday I want to set a nice headstone for her. The wooden cross we placed there will just rot away in no time. She didn’t even have a proper casket. Look how we lived while we were in the camps. And I had promised her that I would give her the best for the rest of her life.”

  I knew in my heart that he could not even think of leaving Mother’s graveside. I rose and went outside to sit on the front step of the house. It was dusk, and music and voices from American encampments were heard. I thought I heard very distant artillery and wondered, “Isn’t the war over yet? Where are all the soldiers going, and why can we still hear shooting? Only yesterday I thought I heard someone saying that Berlin had fallen.”

  May 2, 1945: The Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin, and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.

  It was strange not seeing shiny German boots anymore. The Americans had such a casual appearance compared with the uniformed, stiff discipline of the German army. I felt tired and suddenly wanted to go to bed. I peeked into the sitting room and saw that Father had not moved. A tiny table lamp was burning by his easy chair and a trail of smoke was rising above the lamp shade. Father’s fingers held a cigarette, his thoughts wandering into space.

  “Good night, Papa.” There was no answer. He was off in his own world.

  Several days later, I saw Father talking very seriously with an American officer. Whether German, Italian, American, or British, Father always seemed to strike up acquaintances with an officer. I decided there must be some special courtesy or camaraderie that existed between military officers that helped them to establish respectful relations.

  I had seen Father talking with this officer once or twice before, but this time the conversation looked serious. Not just a smoke and a friendly chat. I was sitting on the front step as Father came to the house saying that the situation was changing. It didn’t look good, and we should prepare ourselves for the worst.

  “What do you mean the situation is changing?” I asked.

  “Well, the Americans are leaving.”

  “Does that mean that they have been defeated by the Germans?”

  “Oh, no, no, they are just moving on. Tomorrow British troops are taking over Blankenburg.”

  “Why is that bad? At least it will be easier to speak with them. I still have a little difficulty understanding the Americans.”

  “It just means that the war is not quite over yet,” Father said thoughtfully. “The troops are still on the move, and apparently the Soviet army is not too far behind.”

  The following morning, all the American forces pulled out, and the British army marched in. The language was very familiar to me then. They sounded just like Mother and Miss Spencer back in Belgrade, but their presence made me terribly homesick. The British were very reserved. They took the war seriously and did not mingle with the civilian population. Their reserved nature was nothing new. I remembered several British friends who visited us when I was a small child, and they were all, just like Miss Spencer, very reserved and proper at all times.

  May 7, 1945: Germany signed an unconditional surrender.

  May 8, 1945: President Harry Truman announced VE Day, Victory in Europe Day.

  I found my existence sort of useless. I had not been in school for so very long, and I was amazed to find myself missing my tutors and the structure and discipline that school and my tutors had brought into my life.

  I read every book I could find in the house: Goethe, Schiller, Mann, and scores of outdated German newspapers. Reading those papers was so strange. Each issue displayed a headline highlighting a new victory, never a word of defeat. Reading the newspapers always reminded me of hearing a harsh German voice, blaring from the camp loudspeakers, announcing the latest official news bulletins from the OKW.

  I wondered where our Russian friends were with whom we had spent so much time in the forced labor camp and who had cried at Mother’s graveside. I had seen only one or two of them in town. The Zengovitz family came once to visit, but I pretended to be sleeping when they came. Two of the engineers who worked for the Bentin Company were still in town. I saw Father speaking with them several times and wondered why he would be talking to them?

  I never saw Herr Mueller again after the night the office burned down, and it saddened me. I don’t think people can share an event such as happened that terrible morning in front of his office without forming a lasting bond. I prayed for him and prayed that he had found his wife.

  The town of Blankenburg had taken on a different atmosphere when the American troops left. When
the Americans had been in town, there had always been music and laughter. The British troops, with their rigid ways, reminded me of the highly disciplined Germans. Of course, there was no comparison, but the light ways of the Americans had gone.

  I remembered what Father had said about me going to America, and I began to think that perhaps I would like that idea. Of course, it was impossible. We had no one in America, and we had no money—not even a change of clothing. Well, I could dream nonetheless. I even missed their constant gum-chewing, although I found it so terribly ugly when I saw them doing it.

  A short time after the arrival of the British, I saw Father one day speaking with a British officer. Once again he had formed a friendship with a military officer. He came home that evening obviously distraught.

  “This is it, Asya,” he said. “They are leaving, too. The British are moving on, and this area is being turned over to the Soviet army. Now I have made arrangements with those two engineers—you remember the two who worked at the Bentin office in the camp—well, their main office is in Hamburg, and their homes and families are in Hamburg also. They have agreed, not out of the goodness of their heart, but for a price.”

  Father’s face looked distasteful, and his voice took on a sarcastic tone.

  “For a price . . . yes, they have agreed to take you along to Hamburg. That seems to be the only safe place right now. The Soviet army will not go that far north and west. I have learned that the British have opened a displaced persons camp in Hamburg for Yugoslavian citizens. The engineers will take you there, and if they cannot have you admitted to that camp, then they have assured me that they will find you a place to live and will help you to find work. At any rate, no matter what results from this trip north, it will be far better than taking a chance of falling into Russian hands.”

  “Papa,” I said, “I don’t understand any of this. You know that we are Russian. We have been mistreated by the Germans for that very reason, and now we are trying desperately to avoid our own people.”

  Suddenly Father straightened in his chair, has face assuming a very stern expression, and he shook his finger at me.

  “Don’t ever, ever let me hear you say that the Bolsheviks are ‘our own people.’ They are monsters who have defiled the Russian earth and destroyed the most inner part of the Russian Soul! Their souls are possessed by a demon. Oh, no, I would rather kill myself and you than to let you fall into their hands . . . to have your soul destroyed and your mind poisoned.”

  He rose from his chair and began to pace the floor, his forehead lined with deep wrinkles, his eyes stern but filled with pain.

  “Don’t ever forget . . .” He stopped pacing and turned to face me with almost pleading eyes, his shadow so huge on the wall behind him. “Don’t ever forget what they have done to your aunts and uncles, your grandparents on both sides. Even though you never met them, their memory should forever live on in your heart.”

  He broke off then, his voice filling with emotion, not wanting to relive the stories of the murder and rape of family members and the horrors of the Russian revolution. I had heard those stories many times, but they never stirred any great emotion in me. After all, those aunts, uncles, and grandparents were only pictures in the family album. I had no way of relating to them or to the horrors they underwent. It had all happened so long ago, long before I had even been born, but I knew that the pain of the revolution was still fresh in Father’s memory.

  My God, I wondered. How can Papa live with all that pain and hatred in his heart for so long? Does that mean that I will forever relive the horror of the Nazi invasion and occupation, and the trials of my trip to Blankenburg and the camp? Suddenly, the lovely face of the little nun in Hopova came into my mind. How I longed to be back in the cloister, feeling green grass beneath my feet, to be able to cry over a crushed flower and be assured by the nun that “nothing ever dies,” to fall asleep watching the icon and the nodding shadow of the nun on the wall. I wished that I had never seen death, felt hunger, never held my dead mother’s head on my lap. I wished with all my heart that I could still believe every word those nuns had told me . . . to look at birds, clouds, flowers and see only God’s creative hand, to truly believe again that “nothing ever dies.”

  “Papa,” I asked softly, suddenly looking at Father, “do you think the Germans harmed the nuns at Hopova?”

  “Hopova?” Father’s shoulders sank down. “Haven’t you heard a word I said about your grandparents, your family? Were you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Papa, I’ve heard every word.”

  “Then,” he asked, strong annoyance in his voice, “what do Hopova and the nuns have to do with our present conversation?”

  “Nothing, Papa, nothing at all,” I said softly. “Goodnight, Papa.”

  There was no answer again. Lately Papa didn’t answer my goodnights. More and more he was preoccupied with his own thoughts, his own memories and pain. A wall had begun to grow between us since the day of Mother’s funeral, when I ran from her grave. In a way, I welcomed the distance. Since that frightening day in our garage rooms in Belgrade so long before, I had gradually begun to trust Father again, to rely on his judgment and strength. He had again been the strong model father I loved, and I became confused remembering the garage.

  Since Mother’s death, I had begun to feel uneasy and to maintain a little distance from Father. I think that without realizing it, I perhaps felt that Mother had always been there between us. I missed her more than I would realize for a very long time. I tried to sleep that night, but could not. I lay there wishing that the icon candle was casting a light and shadow on the wall, that I could fall asleep knowing that tomorrow the peaceful face of a nun would be there to guide me through another day of beauty, flowers, and gentle people God had created for us to cherish and to love.

  Morning came all too soon. Father and I walked into town to receive our weekly rations.

  “Now,” Father reminded me, “don’t forget that you’re eighteen years old if anyone should ask. But I have your identification certificate right here if anyone should,” and he patted his pocket to reassure himself that it was there.

  Funny, I thought, as we walked along, I’ve never seen this phony identification certificate. Oh, well, who cares? I certainly don’t. If they want me to, I’ll tell them I’m forty years old. We spent almost the entire morning standing in line. I don’t recall any conversation between us as we walked back to the house, each probably thinking about the separation that lay ahead.

  When we returned to the house, the elderly owner led me into the bedroom to try on some dresses she had found in her closet and an old fur coat. I tried a dress on and found it to be about two sizes too large. The fur coat was hideous. The fur had worn off the elbows and collar. Father had told her that he was sending me on to Hamburg and asked if she had any clothing I might use.

  She produced an old suitcase and half-filled it with some underwear, a skirt and blouse, a dress, and a pair of shoes. The clothes were old and very dark, ugly, but I didn’t care. I had absolutely no interest in what went into the old suitcase. I never knew what it cost Father, if anything, but I thought I saw one of Mother’s rings on the woman’s finger later that day.

  Early the following morning, Father and I sat on the front porch, my head filled with a sense of foreboding and full of questions, “How far is Hamburg? Where will I go when I get there? How will I live? With whom and where?” Father had no answers to my questions. His only concern was that I not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Soviet army, now only a few miles away.

  “Anochka,” Father said, “I have given money and a couple of Mother’s brooches to the engineers for you. They are going to give these things to you as soon as you are settled so that at least you will be able to pay for food and immediate necessities, a room or whatever.”

  “They will give me those things when we get to Hamburg?” I asked. I still kept the rings and brooch that Mother had given to me the night I left Belgrade tied around
my neck, the watch in my shoe.

  “Yes. They have your things locked in their briefcase along with some important papers from their office. I’m sure it’s the safest way. There is no lock for your suitcase. They are going to take you to the Yugoslavian displaced persons camp, and if the camp is filled or for some reason you can’t stay in the camp, then they will arrange a room for you and help you to find a job.”

  “What about you, Papa? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to stay here and hide for a while. Hope the Soviet troops don’t find me. Try to save enough money to set a nice headstone for Mama. And if everything fails and they do find me, well, I always carry my trusted friend now.” he said, patting his side pocket.

  “What ‘trusted friend’?”

  “My service revolver. Small, but powerful. Big enough to do the job.”

  “What ‘job’?” I asked. “Surely you aren’t going to kill someone.”

  “Just me,” he said calmly.

  “Papa!” My mouth fell open in disbelief. When he had shown me the gun in the past, speaking of never allowing Mother or me to fall into the hands of the “Hooligans,” it had been abstract. Now there was no mistaking his intention.

  “Now, now, don’t you worry,” he said, trying to reassure me. “It would be a relief not to have to run anymore, to seek a new life, to start over again in some new country. I just can’t run anymore, Anochka. I’m tired. I need a rest.” He paused and took my head in both his hands and kissed my forehead. “Don’t think about it. Just try to remember what I have always told you about a strong foundation, about honesty, dignity, and pride. Yes, pride in who you are and what you are.”

  “Who I am and what I am? Who am I? What am I? I look like a beggar. I have no home, no family. I live in a country that despises us. What is there to be proud of?”